EU Proposes ‘Youth Guarantees’ to Help Fight Record Unemployment

By Jones Hayden -
Dec 5, 2012

The European Union proposed a system
of “youth guarantees” to help fight record unemployment among
young people in the euro area.

The Youth Guarantee aims “to ensure that all young people
up to age 25 receive a quality offer of a job, continued
education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months
of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed,” the
European Commission, the EU executive in Brussels, said today in
a statement.

With the euro-area economy mired in a recession, the
jobless rate among people under 25 increased to a 23.9 percent
in October, more than double the overall unemployment rate and
the highest since the data series started in 1995. The youth
jobless rates for Spain and Greece are above 50 percent,
according to data from Eurostat, the EU statistics agency.

Euro-area services and manufacturing output contracted for
a 10th straight month in November, data showed today, suggesting
the economy may struggle to regain strength. The economy shrank
0.1 percent in the third quarter after a 0.2 percent contraction
in the prior three months, and the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development last week forecast gross domestic
product will decline 0.4 percent this year and 0.1 percent in
2013.

Labor-market reforms are “absolutely necessary,” EU
President Herman Van Rompuy said last week. “There is no
lasting growth without a strong base in manufacturing.”

The commission’s proposal urges EU governments to
“establish strong partnerships with stakeholders” and ensure
“early intervention by employment services and other partners
supporting young people,” among other recommendations.

Across the euro area, 3.6 million persons under 25 were
without a job in October, up 350,000 from the year-earlier
month, according to Eurostat.